i am strength

i woke up this morning already missing. missing people, missing myself.
if every year i have lived was to have a title, 2011 would be "young" and 2012 would be "love" and 2013 would be "lost" because let's face it, i have no idea what to do with myself and all my struggles this year have been in figuring that out.
but after i woke up i checked my inbox, forgetting that is was monday, you know, the day you get emails from missionaries, and ari said this to me: 

Stop that! You always know what to do. You may not know the course or the exact thing that will happen next or the career you want in life, but you KNOW who you are and you know that you will do the very best you can in anything you do. Yes, College sucks and doesn't give any help in the "what should I do for the rest of my life" department. BUT you are going to graduate with a degree in something, proving that you can do HARD things! and you can. Because you are Hannah FLIPPIN Kroes. You are strength.

and i share this with you because, how true! it doesn't matter exactly what i do, it matters how i do it. and how will i do it? well the same way i've done everything: with love.

just like the heart has no limit for love, the heart has no limit for missing. which is at once very sad but very comforting, because there's room, and i won't lose anyone in there, even if i don't see them for months or for years.

my whole life i have been pulled along by little tugs. tugs to china, tugs to people, tugs to certain classes. and it has not failed me yet. right now i am scared because i don't feel any. i feel like all the strings connecting me to destiny have been cut. no tugs to serve abroad anywhere this fall. none to move somewhere else. none to live in provo, none to go on a mission, none for any classes to take, none to live at home, none to meet any certain people. so i have no plans. and in a way i guess that's nice, because i can decide all by myself, but also it's not because i don't know what i want. i have a few weeks to figure this out, so wish me luck.

3rd wave

there are honestly no words inside me. i try to blog sometimes. the result is about 6 feminist drafts.

i am trying to figure out what this means for me. am i settling? 

i've been thinking about my future from a different perspective and it has changed everything. 

what kind of woman do i want to be?

not what kind of person; i know almost exactly what kind of person i want to be.

but what kind of woman? a stay-at-home mother? a working one? an academic? a wife? a teacher? a leader? i am trying to create my own definition of what womanhood will mean for me (something i think every girl has to do at some point) and the answer will change all of my decisions, but the answer is not an easy one to come by.

but it has been helpful that despite what they say this is not an either/or. for me, it isn't. i don't have to grow up and become a wife and NOT a leader; i don't have to grow up and become a mother and NOT engaged in a career; i don't have to pursue a career wholeheartedly and NOT pursue a family. we all know that love should be the number one priority but i don't have to write NURTURE on every line on my list. i can write whatever the heck i want to on my list, no matter how small those priorities may become once my perspective gets a little bit bigger. as much as i'd like to, and as much as i feel i'm supposed to, i will never be comfortable choosing one with the exclusion of the other. 

coming to a conclusion about my own personal womanhood is miles away but it has been quite a process to even begin considering it. i guess the one thing i've figured out so far is that whatever i choose on the spectrum of womanhood will be my own personal choice, not a result of somebody else's and definitely not a settlement.

look, it turned into another feminist post. that was unintentional.

3rd wave feminism (where we are right now, my friends, contrary to popular belief) is about reclaiming female agency and using choice to make yourself into exactly what kind of woman you want to be, while respecting the choices that other women choose to make no matter how different they may be from yours. am i the only one that thinks about this so deeply? is there anyone that can shed light on their own personal definition of womanhood? i would certainly like to hear it.

transitions

19 years old is a funny age, i think.
you're really not quite anything.
not a teenager, not grown up.
a college student, but not really certain what you're doing.
if you're like me,
you're juggling several different groups of friends--
home friends,
freshman friends,
new provo ones, too.
moving every four months
and sifting through opportunities that only come in this college window.
which to take?
where to be?
who to be with?
i can't say that i really belong anywhere,
but i can say that i think i love that.
to belong in one place...
that can be so confining.
i think i'll keep living as a nomad.
so much of my heart is with american fork and the girls i stayed with at the cabin,
but so much of it is in heritage halls
and so much of it is on university avenue.
some of it got taken to new york city, some to florida, and some to winnipeg.
some stayed in paris and seattle and even a little part is in the morris center.
a lot is about to be taken across the world to weihai,
and you'd think that'd mean that my heart would be spread pretty thin by now,
in my close-to-nineteen years.
but everywhere i try to put it just makes it grow,
and i feel like my heart is pretty huge,
just bursting with love for every place i've ever been.
i'm in-between,
but i think i like it here.

liberated

this weekend left me feeling pretty free.
i'm not exactly sure what it was.
it was probably the combination of everything.
but i drove back to provo listening to on top of the world by imagine dragons,
over and over because i feel so happy when i listen to it.
and i realized just how wonderful china is going to be for me. 
my life started to disintegrate three years ago from the day i'll be leaving for china,
and don't get me wrong, i've had thousands of happy moments and huge blessings
and countless full hearts.
but i'm not sure i've 100% recovered yet. i'm not all the way back.
it takes a long time to recover.
it's a long way down. it's a long way up.
and i think i'm going to get there in china.
it's exactly what i need:
no drama, no family messes, no job hunting, no essays, and no boys for heavens sakes. 
just three of my best friends, a bunch of adorable kids, and a million adventures.
and i'll have no time to think about myself. just others.
that's some major heart-distance diminishing there. some major comfort-zone expanding, too.
isn't that lovely?

and i also realized that i can do whatever i want.
i can set my mind to it, and i can do it.

i'm on top of the world, ay,
i'm on top of the world, ay,
been waiting on this for a while now
paying my dues to the dirt
i've been waiting to smile, ay,
been holding it in for a while, ay,
take it with me if i can
been dreaming of this since a child
i'm on top of the world.

and i know it's hard when you're falling down
and it's a long way up when you hit the ground
so get up now, get up now, get up now.

i'm way more into bingley

and if i was mia thermopolis i would choose andrew jacoby,
and just like lizzie, i'd choose gordo.
i'd pick jacob, i'd pick gale,
and in the holiday i'd rather be with jack black than jude law,
i think living the notebook would be the most excruciatingly painful thing ever,
and i couldn't be a bigger fan of the nerdy comic book guy in jane austen book club.

because the movies make love look so hard.
like such a battle.
and i've seen that,
i've seen the battles. but it's not so romantic in real life.
and bonfires burn out
and hot guys get old.
and ya know,
all i really want is a best friend,
someone who can laugh, laugh a lot,
who is unselfish and straightforward
and hates the game of love as much as i do.
i want it to be simple when i fall in love,
no mystery.
just yes.
i won't hate him before i love him and i won't change myself to fit him and i won't make him do that, either,
and we'll be in big, huge, heart bursting love,
but the joyful kind. the clean kind,
not the messy kind.
and there won't be fireworks every time i touch him,
i don't want that, geez, wouldn't that hurt my retinas?
i think i'd rather spend a lot more time holding hands than kissing,
and you know, as much as i love adventures,
i'd really rather be in a little white house with lots of trees and slippers on my feet
than jet-setting around europe in louboutins.